4-2023 What is ISBN ? How does it work ?

Have you ever noticed on the back cover of every book is a barcoded pattern with some numbers ? Ever wondered what could that possibly mean ? According to wikipedia "The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. " It helps librarians and bookstores keep track of books in their custody. The bar code replaces the ISBN for automated inventory control.

The ISBN is structured as in the digram given on the right:

Recently, my new book on Ramanujan got an ISBN: 978-1-5457-5712-3 (shown in the image below).

Also see:: How do barcodes work in the book publishing industry ?